Making Thanksgiving Less Stressful

The Thanksgiving Holiday is a time for family and fun, but if you're hosting the holiday dinner, it's a lot of work. Of course, we want to spend time with the family, but find ourselves in the kitchen preparing and cooking or, afterwords, cleaning up. Why not look into making Thanksgiving less stressful.

Here are a few tips for making your Thanksgiving less stressful.

1) Clean your home before Thanksgiving - We all like to have a clean and neat home for our guests, but cleaning on Thanksgiving Day is not the best time. If you can get your family members to take care of one section(s) of the home, clean-up will be done in no time.

2)Thanksgiving Menu Planning - This includes what you will bake, cook, and roast for this special holiday occasion.

3) Delicate Duties - Who says that you have to do everything. Let your family be apart of your holiday production. Your older kids can peel potatoes for your
Famous Family Recipe
for mashed potatoes or slice vegetables for a delicious salad. For the younger ones, adding ingredients and stirring will make them happy and feel a part of the holiday celebration. Practice Food Safety and make sure your children follow safe hand-washing rules.

4) Set The Table - We always set the table at the last minute. You can always set the table the night before or if you are having a buffet style Thanksgiving. You can set the buffet servers, sternals, and utensils 2 days ahead of time.

5) Make a List and Check it Twice - A lot of time after Thanksgiving dinner is spent putting away food and distributing leftovers. Make a list of everyone that is attending figure out how many servings that you will need. Keep in mind that we eat a lot more on Thankgiving than any other holiday. This cuts down on leftovers, which seem to take over your refrigerator. Here is one way to take care of

6) Use Disposable Pans, - If you are roasting a Turkey, Ham, Chicken or other meats, try cooking them in a disposable pan. Last thing you want to do all day after preparing and cooking is stand over a sink or stuffing dishes in the dishwasher all evening. Disposable pans come in all sizes for meats/side dishes and desserts. Just throw them out at the end of the day.

7)
Buy Containers for Leftovers
-Try stuffing all those pots and pans in your refrigerator and you instantly remember how frustrating this can be. But, an assortment of Food Grade Containers that will conveniently fit into your refrigerator.